The Henry's Cat of the web shares his thoughts on various matters cultural, scientific, linguistic and philosophical

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(First written a while ago, but very appropriate in the current climate)

Snow can be very deceptive- the pickpocket to rain’s mugger. Sat in a comfortable chair in a warm room with your mind on other things, you can’t hear it falling. Most of the time you can’t hear it even if you’re standing outside with it coming down all around you. You could quite feasibly sit on a bench on a cold, but snow-free day, fall asleep for an hour and wake up buried under it, or at least, surrounded by a very different environment to what you left behind when you nodded off.

Maybe this is why I always feel the urge to watch the snow fall. It has to be seen to be believed sometimes- how can such a huge transformation of your surrounding happen in virtual silence? And it is indeed a huge change: show someone a picture of their own street under a few inches of snow and there’s a good chance they won’t recognise it.

Perhaps on this night this desire was also due to the fact that we’d had to wait so long for it- one day of snow in November caused a bit of panic that we were in for an awfully long, cold winter, and then nothing. The hottest (if ‘hot’ is the right word for it) December on record and a lot of uneasy business owners in ski resorts across Europe.

That said, the wait was only a small factor. I’ve always been intrigued by snow, even before I discovered skiing as a 12 year old. After that, there was a whole new dimension to my love of snow but it wasn’t the start